Media giants plan Wii video distribution service -- Nikkei

The Wii will be the first target for a new video distribution business being formed by major media and advertising companies that include Fuji Television and Nippon Television, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun reports in its Thursday morning edition.

Seven firms will invest in a Shinjuku-based venture company, SkillUpJapan. This company will build a secure contents distribution system, manage copyrights, and distribute income from the business back to the seven investing parties.

The seven companies investing in the initiative are, in addition to Fuji TV and NTV, Tokyo Broadcasting System, Dentsu. Com, Hakuhodo DY Media Partners, Internet Initiative, and CyberAgent.

Plans call for television content to be distributed following a delay of a few days. The various investment partners will also be working with SkillUp on business models involving advertising and paid content.

The service will kick off with the Wii as early as Spring 2009. SkillUp also plans to expand to other devices, including PCs, portable game machines, and cell phones. In the future, content may be distributed overseas as well.

For the Wii, this is just the latest in a line of media distribution announcements. Most recently, Fuji Soft shared plans for the Everyone's Theater Wii service, set to kick off via the system's WiiWare download service this December. A demo was shown at the Tokyo Game Show.

The specific form of the new video service was not detailed in the Nikkei report.